"Compelled the bunko men to return $22,000 to their victims." Rocky Mountain News July 18, 1884

Rocky Mountain News
July 18, 1884
(article transcribed below)

(Click image to enlarge)

ompelled the bunko men to return $22,000 to their victims.

      Following is the transcribed newspaper article from the Rocky Mountain News, July 18, 1884.

Mayor Routt is singularly silent regarding the bunko thieves. We would like to know why he does not order his police to either run the thieves into jail or out of town? Sheriff Graham has been quoted as authority for the statement that within eight or nine weeks he has compelled the bunko men to return $22,000 to their victims. No record has been made public regarding the losses of visitors who have either appealed to the police or remained silent because they were ashamed to admit they were foolish enough to get robbed in that way. Mayor Routt must know that tourists will avoid Denver if they believe that the bunko thieves are protected by the police. 

As no bunko men are mentioned by name, it has been questioned whether Soapy Smith was among those bunko men "compelled" to return their stolen loot, let alone residing in Denver at the time. The following comes from my book, Alias Soapy Smith: The Life and Death of a Scoundrel.

     The Rocky Mountain News exposed all manner of fraud in its pages throughout July 1884 but with little response from the law, even after printing the letter of a traveler’s experiences with the con men and the police. On July 13th the RMN posted a letter from a victim of the bunko gangs.

I am on my way from London, England to Los Angeles, California. I arrived in Denver this morning by the 8 o’clock train. I had to wait until 1:25. Going down the street, a well-dressed young man came up to me and tried to make my acquaintance. He then led me to an office, 507 ½ Larimer Street, first floor. On the door is written “LAND AND MINERAL ASSOCIATION.” He presented a lottery ticket: His accomplice in the office said he had won and paid out to him in my presence $200. He then made him take another ticket, played cards and the man won and received again $50. He took another ticket and I drew for him No. 39. The accomplice said I had won a condition purse of $1000, and we both must lay down $50 cash and would then receive the 1000 cash. I did not lay down any money because I mistrusted them. I applied to two policemen and concluded from their answers that they are in league with these swindlers and confidence bank men, and I would ask you, have you not any means of putting down in publication in your paper this rouguery? [sic]

I remain, sir, yours faithfully
J. Weisendaryer

 Mr. Weisendaryer seems to have been cautious enough not to take out his wallet and perceptive enough to see that the policemen were in league with the bunco men. The letter to the Rocky Mountain News, perhaps written by Weisendaryer before catching his 1:25 train, added momentum to a growing wave of reform.
     After this letter, the Rocky Mountain News declared war on the bunco men, which included all gamblers and saloon proprietors. The editors made it clear that they were not afraid of the gangs or the corrupt city officials and their police minions. The paper bombarded city hall and the police chief with demands to rid the city of confidence gangs. This would mean that Soapy's unofficial permit to operate freely was likely revoked. No one at city hall wished to risk his position to protect Soapy and his associates.

     The methods of the bunko gangs did not vary much, but I must say that the tactics used are identical to those utilized by the Soap Gang for 20 years, but this is not proof that it was indeed Soapy's handiwork. Five days later the article in which Sheriff Graham compels the bunko men to return $22,000 was published.
     Whether Soapy was in Denver in July 1884 when the "crack-down" on the bunko men took place is not 100% certain. The July 29, 1884 issue of the RMN states that a "Jeff R. Smith" was registered at the American Hotel. It is not known if this is Soapy. We do know, from artifacts in the family collection, that he purchased a vendors license in Del Norte, Colorado on September 13, 1884, almost two months after the July crack-down. Three months later the World's Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition in New Orleans, Louisiana opens to the public. The following comes from, Alias Soapy Smith: The Life and Death of a Scoundrel.

Jeff's name was absent from the Denver newspapers for much of 1884 and for the first five months of 1885. He seems to have kept an extremely low profile as he established himself in the city. During this period, he might still have been traveling, and one trip might have led to a stay of many months. Eight years later, in 1893, the Rocky Mountain News published an uncharacteristically humorous story about Jeff, said to have been told by Jeff himself. The setting is among men aboard a train returning to Denver. Called upon for a story, Jeff told one that occurred on his return from the New Orleans World’s Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition, which ran from December 16, 1884, to June 2, 1885.

     The Cotton Exposition was an event Soapy and bunco men in general yearned for. We know that Soapy purchased "fair lists" while nomading around the west swindling the unwary. Fairs were one thing but an exposition of this size was the golden goose, not to be passed up. Although it is most probable that Soapy did attend and operate at the event, there is no provenance other than his own word. The newspapers of New Orleans only mention a bunco gang problem a full two months before opening day.

"Vagrant tramps and bunko men."
The Louisiana Democrat
October 14, 1884

 
(Click image to enlarge)

     Was Soapy Smith in Denver during the July 1884 "reform?" The answer is probably. Were any of the bunko men forced to hand back their stolen loot ($22,000)? The answer is probably not. As not one single confidence man seems to have been arrested, it is pretty obvious that there was plenty of corruption in the offices of the mayor and the city sheriff. That the bunko men, including Soapy, were asked to temporary vacate Denver, at least until the "reform" lost it's wind.
     It is guessed that for about ten months Soapy traveled the western states operating as a nomad. The absence of his name from Denver newspapers ended on May 13, 1885 when it was published that  J. Brockman, a Denver resident, had Soapy arrested for swindling him. But that's a story for another day.

World's Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition, 1884-85
 

Reform of July 1884: page 70.
World's Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition: pages 93-94.

"If he knows the exact position of only one of the 52 cards, he will eventually win all the money in sight."

—John Scarne

APRIL 14

1775: The first abolitionist society in the U.S. is organized in Philadelphia with Ben Franklin as president.

1828: The first edition of Noah Webster's dictionary is published under the name American Dictionary of the English Language.

1860: The first Pony Express rider arrives in San Francisco with mail originating in St. Joseph, MO.

1865: President Abraham Lincoln is assassinated in Ford's Theater by John Wilkes Booth. Lincoln dies the following day.

1873: The “Easter Blizzard,” a three-day storm kills many settlers in Kansas, Nebraska and southern Dakota Territory.

1874: Alferd Packer, the lone survivor of the Packer party, makes it to the Los Pinos Indian Agency, near Sagauche, Colorado Territory. Packer told a story of men quarreling and killing each other and of eating human flesh to survive.

1884: Bob Cahill kills outlaw Buck Linn in El Paso, Texas, over a misunderstanding that Cahill had killed Bill Raynard, a partner of Linn’s. Linn came crashing into the gambling hall firing four poorly aimed shots. Cahill's first shot went through Linn’s stomach and shattered his spinal column and the second lodged in Linn's heart.

1894: First public showing of Thomas Edison's kinetoscope.

1902: James Cash Penney opens his first retail store in Kemmerer, Wyoming. It is called the Golden Rule Store. Later stores would be named J. C. Penney.